Originally Posted by
Malcolm Schweizer
This forum frequently has posts with thousands of views but only 10 or so people commenting. Those are not healthy stats. Add to that- good folks are departing. Red flags.
I believe forums have a life cycle similar to rivers: youthful, mature, old age, rejuvenated. SMC is in the old age stage; a small number of posters with high skill levels and few new posters. The new guys lurk because they love being fed, but they feel too inadequate compared to the members with high skill who frequently post. Those higher skilled folks tend to critique (*often unwittingly), and therefore people become afraid to post. Ultimately posts turn from "Here's what I'm building this week (photos)" to "Here's another very technical argument about something we have hashed out already but I love talking about (graphic data, photomicograph)."
Boom.
For an old age stream to rejuvenate, it has to meander back upon itself, ultimately cutting off an oxbow and creating a fresh channel where water flows more freely. The faster flowing water causes other parts of the river to follow suit, and soon you have a rejuvenated stream. *EDIT! This is not a reference to cutting off David or other members- I mean something must change to rejeuvenate and get the flow going. That could be something like getting rid of seldom-used subforums. Example- I am a boatbuilder. I teach boatbuilding. I think I have posted on the boatbuilding forum maybe four times. There are established boatbuilding forums for that. Maybe merge a few of these specialty categories to get more folks talking together instead of segregating them.
Perhaps that should become a new thread topic followed by asking people how to improve and why they don't post, especially begging lurkers to comment. I say this not negatively but because I see a need for it when so few are sharing and folks are leaving. We noticed David. How many did we not notice?